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Chapter 7 American Political Ideologies and Beliefs

  • Public opinion: how people feel about things
    • Pollsters measure public opinion
    • Not uniform - general public care more about political issues that directly affect their regular lives
    • Political issue does not have to interest the majority of the public to be considered important
    • Issue public: a smaller group to which an issue is important

Characteristics of Public Opinion

  • Characteristics:
    • Saliency: the degree to which an issue is important to a certain individual/group
    • Intensity: how strongly people feel about a particular issue
    • Stability: how much dimensions of public opinion change
  • Measured indirectly through elections, but hard to translate
  • Referendum submitted to popular vote to accept/reject a legislation, measures public opinion on specific issues
  • Public opinion polls measure public opinion most frequently and directly

Polls Measure Public Opinion

  • Designed to measure public opinion by asking a smaller group questions
    • Achieved by pollsters through random sampling: allows pollsters to find information representative of the public
    • Benchmark polls: conducted by a campaign when a candidate initially announces
    • Provide campaign with baseline data to see if chances of winning election improve over time
    • Tracking polls: performed multiple times with the same sample to track changes in opinion
    • Entrance polls: collected on Election Day as voters go to cast their vote
    • Exit polls: conducted at polling places, targeting voting districts that represent the public and poll random voters leaving the place
    • Stratified random sampling: variation of random sampling; population divided into subgroups and weighted based on demographics
    • Questions must be carefully worded (objectively)
    • Polls cannot be 100% accurate
    • Sampling error: how wrong the poll results may be
      • Ex. 60% with a sampling error of 4% would mean the real percentage could be between 56 and 64%
      • More respondents = lower sampling error

Where Does Public Opinion Come From?

  • Political socialization: the process by which a person develops political attitudes
    • Factors:
    • Family
      • Most people eventually are of the same political party as their parents
      • Children get moral/ethical values from parents
    • Location
      • Rural areas develop more socially conservative views than cities
    • Religious institutions
    • Mass media
    • Higher education
      • Large change in political beliefs

Political Ideologies

  • Ideology: a coherent set of thoughts and beliefs about politics and government
    • Conservative: less government interference; oppose most federal regulations (laissez-faire economics); social conservatives support government involvement in social issues
    • Liberal: more government assistance to help social/economic problems; government regulation of economy; separation of church and state
    • Moderate/independent: no coherent ideology; common sense over philosophical principles
  • Americans have fewer ideological groups
  • Strongly ideological Americans tend to be more politically active
    • Political activities/organizations
    • Candidates must appeal to more extreme party members in primaries but be more moderate in general elections

Determining Factors in Ideological and Political Behavior

  • Factors:
    • Race/ethnicity: groups with lower income are usually more liberal
    • Religion: Jews and Protestants are more liberal; Catholics lean left but are more conservative on social issues; Protestants are more conservative
    • Gender: women tend to be more liberal
    • Income level: higher income Americans tend to be more supportive of liberal goals but more fiscally conservatives; lower income Americans are more conservative on issues except welfare
    • Region: East Coast is more liberal, South is more conservative, West Coast is the most polarized/mixed; cities are more liberal while rural/small towns are conservative

Public Opinion and the Mass Media

  • News media
    • News broadcasts on TV, radio, and the Internet
    • Newspapers
    • News magazines
    • Magazine broadcast programs
    • Newsmaker interview programs
    • Websites, blogs, news aggregators, online forums
    • Social media
    • Political talk radio/podcasts
  • Media sets the public agenda by choosing stories to cover and which to ignore
  • Media provides Americans with exposure to the government + politicians
    • Question motives of government
    • Exposure to news media has increased, more influence over the years
  • Media only affects public opinion when it is volatile or news coverage is extensive and mostly positive/negative
    • Most instances it does not have an effect - media covers many stories simultaneously, Americans choose media that enforce their political beliefs
  • Social media has become a tool for grassroots political movements

Are News Organizations Biased?

  • There is less ideological bias in news than critics claim
    • News media has become less biased throughout American history
    • Most news organizations want to be objective - consumers from both sides of the political spectrum
    • Impossible for news media to be completely objective
    • Simple stories are faster to run and don’t bore consumers
    • Time and space result in bias
    • Especially with TV news programs
      • Must report many stories in limited time
      • Use short sound bites
    • Can be biased by sources of information
    • Reporters who use politicians/government sources must try not to offend their sources and not become too close but demonstrate independence and credibility
    • Reporters are usually more skeptical about politicians’ motives than Americans are
    • Politicians try to influence news coverage
    • Photo ops
    • Press releases
    • plan appearances based on audience demographics